After Channapatna drubbing, how does the JD(S) ship survive?

NT Bengaluru

The recent drubbing of JD(S) candidate Nikhil Kumaraswamy in Channapatna by more than 25,000 votes has once again put the focus back on the party’s perceived existential crisis. Victor and now six-time Channapatna MLA CP Yogeshwar was quick to dub the JD(S) by-poll loss as the beginning of the end for the party, stating that the regional outfit had lost Ramanagar district and would lose ground in the larger Old Mysuru region. He even suggested some JD(S) MLAs could jump ship to theCongress. However, observers cautioned that he might be reading too much into a by-poll loss.

Professor Narayana A from the school of policy and governance at Azim Premji University said for the JD(S) to survive, it had to expand its support base. He argued they had shrunk because they went from being a regional party to a castebased one that depended heavily on their Vokkaliga vote bank to one identified with the family of the outfit’s founder HD Devegowda. Narayana reckoned Vokkaligas were abandoning the JD(S) because of dynastic politics, adding that the second and third generation of the Gowda family lacked the gravity of Devegowda. He reasoned that the party needed to expand its support base. He pointed out their alliance with the BJP had worked in the Lok Sabha election but may not prove enough since voters of the state perceived Assembly polls differently. “The JD(S) cannot sustain as a separate political party as long as it relies entirely on the Vokkaliga votes. That is what has been happening with that party as of late. It used to be a regional party, then it became kind of a caste-based party, then it was reduced to a family party.

The more it became family-centric, the more the desertion of the Vokkaliga voters from its fold. If the JD(S) continues to rely on Vokkaliga votes and if they continue to rally around one political family, I don’t see a future for the party,” Narayana said. “Therefore, if it has to revive, it has to establish itself as a distinct, regional party, a third force in Karnataka and a centrist alternative. Karnataka, at present, has a space for a third force,” he said.

BJP threat to MLAs: Prof Narayana said he saw alliance partner BJP as a bigger threat which could poach JD(S) MLAs as opposed to the Congress who already boasts of 137 seats. “The primary threat is from the BJP itself and not the Congress. In any constituency, if the MLA is winning on his personal clout and not so much because of the party affiliation, those MLAs in the next election would find it useful and beneficial to contest as BJP candidates rather than JD(S) ones,” he said.

“The BJP would actually try to promote these kinds of tendencies among the JD(S) MLAs because the BJP doesn’t have strong Vokkaliga candidates and leaders,'' he said.